Unlikely Allies Fight Indian Landfill : Environment: The impoverished Campo Band of Mission Indians is considering building a solid-waste sanitary landfill on its reservation.

Donna Tisdale and Arol Wulf are the first to admit that theirs is an unlikely alliance.

Tisdale is a rancher, from her Western shirt to her red cowboy boots. With her husband, Ed, she runs the 120-acre Morning Star Ranch in southeast San Diego County. Wulf is the co-founder of a nearby commune, Zendik Farms. A self-described healer, she has a blue teardrop tattoo on her cheek.

Unified by a proposed 660-acre landfill on the neighboring Campo Indian Reservation, however, Tisdale and Wulf are leading a growing number of landfill opponents. And they say they are determined to whip the sleepy town of Boulevard into a frenzy.

“Indians, cowboys, ranchers, rednecks, bikers and . . . hippies,” Tisdale said, glancing apologetically at Wulf. “We’ve crawled out of the hills to have our say: No water, no future.”

At issue is a proposed solid-waste sanitary landfill that the impoverished Campo Band of Mission Indians is considering building on their reservation. The landfill, which would accept more than 2,000 tons of San Diego and Chula Vista trash each day for up to 40 years, is one of six sites the county is considering to help solve its garbage problem. Faced with the imminent closure of its four major landfills--San Marcos, Otay, Sycamore and Miramar--the county is searching for new places to put its trash before the turn of the century, and the Campo reservation is considered a prime site.

For the Mission Indians, the landfill holds the promise of employment and relative prosperity. Tribal Chairman Ralph Goff, who presides over one of the poorest corners of southeastern San Diego County, says he has sought other ways such as bingo tournaments to bring jobs to the 200 Indians who live on the reservation, but to no avail.

“There isn’t a whole lot you can do out here,” Goff said, looking out his window at 15,000 acres of inhospitable highlands stretching from the Tecate Mountains south to the Mexican border. An environmental impact study is still being conducted by the reservation, but Goff believes the landfill can be run safely without threat to the underground streams that support the area. “As far as we’re concerned, unless something comes up that shows it’s not going to work, we’re all for it.”

For the people who live near the Campo reservation, the proposed landfill has rekindled tensions about the Indians’ sovereignty, which places their land outside the jurisdiction of the county, the state and even the U.S. government.

In 1985, when the same reservation considered allowing a toxic-waste disposal business to set up shop, the surrounding community learned there was little it could do to interfere. Under Goff’s leadership, the Indians eventually rejected that idea.

But, of the 250 people who attended a special Boulevard town meeting Thursday night, many expressed worry that the landfill may be too lucrative for the Mission Indians to resist.

“We aren’t anti-Indian. This is Indian water, too,” said Tisdale, who chaired the spirited meeting. She said she believes there are some Indians on the reservation who are opposed to the landfill, which opponents say will bring water, air and noise pollution. “But the pro-dump Indians are just seeing the dollar signs.”

Crammed elbow to elbow in the Boulevard Fire Station’s two-engine garage, few people seemed to fault the Indians for being tempted. To many who make their living off the dry, back-country soil, economic desperation is an all-too-familiar feeling. But the landfill, they said, isn’t worth the risk.

The project schedule calls for construction to begin within a year and a half, depending on the results of the reservation’s environmental impact study. The facility could be operational about a year after that, receiving trash that would be delivered via the San Diego and Imperial Valley Railroad, or by as many as 100 trucks a day.

“I don’t mean to scare you, but we’re sitting on a powder keg,” Billy Jeffries, a former member of the Campo Planning Commission, told the meeting. “If there’s any toxic waste admitted to this dump at all, you could be faced with leaching within 48 hours.”

Community residents found little solace in the knowledge that no toxic waste is intended for the Campo reservation site--especially after they saw a videotape of a “60 Minutes” report about landfills. Contrary to state and federal law, the report said, large quantities of deadly waste, from benzine to cyanide, regularly end up in municipal landfills--in sites that are more strictly regulated than a reservation site could be.

The meeting turned lively when Wulf, a member of the Zendik Farm Arts Cooperative, pointed out that, unlike the communities featured in the videotape, Boulevard cannot appeal to the federal Environmental Protection Agency until after something goes wrong.

“My house isn’t on the reservation! The EPA still has to protect me!” one man yelled. But Wulf shook her head.

Scott Hazelton, a 20-year resident of the area, accused the San Diego County Board of Supervisors of hypocrisy. “Why does the county put themselves above the very laws and regulations they are supposed to enforce?” he asked. “By sending trash to a sovereign nation, they are evading the very laws they should protect. If that’s not a white-collar crime, I don’t know what is.”

Robert Stuart rose in defense of his boss, County Supervisor George Bailey. “Mr. Bailey is as concerned as you are about your ground water,” he said, adding that Bailey has requested that the list of potential sites be expanded to include areas closer to San Diego.

“Then why isn’t he here?” a woman yelled.

Local Indians spoke out as well. Karen Hopkins-Davies, an Assiniboine Sioux who lives in Live Oak Springs, addressed her comments to the Mission Indians, who were not officially represented. “In the past it has been the greed of the white man that has led to the destruction of the Indian people. Now, will you be responsible for hurting yourselves?” she asked.

Most people made a silent statement, signing form letters that will be sent to the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs. There was talk of forging an alliance with the Mexican Teachers’ Union, which owns land in Mexico just south of the landfill. Among the other ideas: a letter-writing campaign to the wives of the men who sit on the board of Ogden Projects, the company that would build the landfill, and to Citibank, where Ogden banks.

“You’ve got to convince Ogden that every time they turn around, they see you,” said Robert Mitchell, a columnist and former owner of the Jacumba Plains Speaker newspaper. “You must convince them that this is going to be the worst mess they’ve ever encountered.”

One woman with a Harley-Davidson insignia sewn to her vest had strapped a black and yellow gas mask to her face. Her green armband said, “Don’t Dump on Us.” When a large pickle jar labeled “Back Country Against the Dump” passed through the crowd, it came back filled with $458.96.

Should the Mission Indians give the go-ahead to the landfill, which would bring about 50 jobs as well as unspecified royalties to the tribe, they would not be the first. In recent years, some of the nation’s largest waste management corporations have started a virtual land rush on Indian reservations. Lured by the lack of government regulation, these companies have successfully wooed several tribes--from the Hopi, Mohave, Chemehuevi and Navajo of the Colorado River Valley to the Cherokees in North Carolina.

In 1979, for example, a landfill on Indian-owned land near Parker, Ariz., opened to serve nearby communities and the needs of the reservation. Then, in the mid-1980s, a Southern California waste hauler persuaded the tribes to accept wastes that would be considered hazardous in California but non-hazardous under the less stringent federal rules used on the Indian reservation. Thus, one state’s toxics became another state’s trash.

Goff, the Tribal Chairman, did not attend Thursday’s meeting because of a prior commitment. But earlier that day, he said he appreciated the community’s concerns. “Maybe they’ll have a concern that I didn’t think of,” he said, rejecting the idea that the reservation and the surrounding area are on opposing sides. “I don’t feel there are sides to it. If it can’t be done right, it won’t be done. We’re on the same side.”

What he doesn’t appreciate, he said, is the implication that the Indians can’t do things right. The landfill’s opponents, he said, “are not taking time to look at the other side. They just can’t believe that we could put a good project together. It’s offending.”

Goff said revenue from the landfill would be used to help meet the reservation’s crucial housing, health and social-service needs. If the county rejects the site, he said, the tribe has not ruled out the possibility of opening a private landfill.

“Obviously, we’re going to put it there to be used. It wouldn’t do much good just to let it sit there,” he said. “We’re going about this in a business-like manner. We’ll make sure it’s done right.”

Wulf said her fears have nothing to do with the fact that Indians would be running the landfill. “I couldn’t run a landfill either,” she said. “There’s no way to have a landfill that’s safe. They say it’s not toxic. But they’re sure not going to go through every bag of trash that comes up from the city to see if there’s paint thinner, batteries, empty bottles of bug poison or nail polish remover inside.”

Tisdale agreed. Just recently, she and her husband had to sell 40 head of cattle, half the Morning Star Ranch herd, because they didn’t have enough water. Should toxins enter the underground streams because of carelessness, a torn landfill liner or a natural disaster, the Tisdales’ ranch would be lost.

“People who don’t depend on well water don’t understand,” she said, pointing out that the nearest water district is in Alpine, about 40 miles west. “If (the landfill) goes in, we can’t stay.”